Alliance Global buys real estate company

Food and beverage conglomerate Alliance Global Group, Inc. (AGI) has completed the acquisition of property developer First Centro, Inc. by taking a 98.63-percent stake work P817.6 million in the company.

Alliance Global informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had bought out the combined stake in First Centro of a group of existing stockholders totalling 729,999,945 shares. It acquired the shares at a book value of P1.12 per share.

AGI will complete the buy-in with a cash payment of P817.6 million within the next 60 days.

"We are expanding our interests beyond food and beverage and into the highly promising information technology-based real estate sector given the strong potential of IT as a platform for growth and economic resurgence, especially in the region," said AGI chairman and McDonald’s franchise George Yang.

Yang had earlier disclosed AGI’s plans to make First Centro its property development arm and a major revenue driver in a few years’ time. First Centro owns Cebu Cybertown, a P12-billion IT project in Cebu accredited by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority.

Alliance Global’s latest foray into IT-related property development through First Centro is part of the conglomerate’s continuing expansion and diversification program since it became a holding company in 1999. Last year, AGI bolstered its bid to step up its international marketing operations by acquiring and taking over the production and international sales of premium food brands Pik-Nik and McKester’s.

Through First Centro, AGI said it hopes to tap the affordable housing and IT sectors to boost its revenue-generating performance. The conglomerate’s total assets reached P4.97 billion in the first quarter this year, up 20 percent quarter on quarter. Its net income climbed 12.4 percent to P88 million from record sales of P392 million in the same period.